


Your Move

by 26stars



Series: How I Met Melinda [6]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: AU Meeting, Coffeeshop AU, F/F, Fluff, i never thought I'd do something like this but here we are, low-key mayskye
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-26
Updated: 2017-08-26
Packaged: 2018-12-20 04:26:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11913180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/26stars/pseuds/26stars
Summary: "at the local coffee shop, there’s a chess game set up in one corner of the shop and every morning I move one piece. later in the day, someone else always moves a piece too. I'm dying to know who I'm playing against" AU





	Your Move

**Author's Note:**

> I never thought I'd write a coffeeshop AU but here we are...
> 
> It was more fun than I expected!

Skye has been calling this coffee shop home for a couple of months now, and she’s starting to notice patterns in the employees’ schedules. She knows which days each manager works and knows that she can stay til midnight when Greg, Sandra, or Mikayla is staffing but she ought to clear out by eight on Tuesdays because Susan is not as amused by Skye’s _time spent in the café/amount of money spent in the café_ ratio. She knows that if she’s there on Thursday before three o’clock, the part-timer, Tanya, will usually slip her a “fallen pastry” from the morning shift (“I just keep dropping those muffins—I’m such a klutz”). She knows which days to expect Brian, who is way too chatty, and which days to expect Carmela, who sometimes helps her with Spanish homework.

She’s spent enough time in this café that she’s also finally noticing patterns in the customers who frequent it, too. The students from the university that are there in the mornings and evenings, the businessmen and women coming in on their way to work (though she usually misses the morning rush since she’s almost always got the morning shift over at the diner or classes until noon), the retirees who fill it up during the day and the high-school students who like to act big by coming in for ice-blended drinks after school.

What Skye hasn’t been able to figure out yet though is who the hell she’s playing chess against.  

The chess set is set up on a small, two-person table near the counter, which Skye guesses is supposed to entice someone into sitting there, since it’s so close to the traffic of the register, though just far enough away to not be jostled by any moving bodies. It had mostly been, to Skye, just decoration, another prop for the aesthetic of this slightly-hipster-but-still-family-friendly café. Chess, overall, was just a game that she barely understood and had no interest in learning to play. On most of the occasions when she had approached the counter and ordered her bottomless coffeecup and, if she was feeling wealthy, one of the previous day’s discounted pastries, the pieces were set up facing each other across the board, waiting for a pair of customers to sit down start a game.

One day, however, Skye noticed that a white pawn had been moved out to the middle of the board in an opening play. Barely thinking about it, Skye had moved a black pawn out to mirror the move, taken her coffee to her usual place at a sofa at the back of the shop, logged onto the wifi and started her online homework, promptly forgetting about it. The next day, however, she’d glanced at the board as she stuffed her wallet back into her bag and seen the two pieces as they’d been placed the day before, plus another white piece moved into play.

_Hm._

Skye had bumped another black pawn into the middle of the board. The next day, a white bishop piece had captured it. To Skye, that was when the game began.

It’s got to be some kind of record for the longest game of chess ever played, but the game has marched by steadily ever since then, one move a day for each of them. She doesn’t usually come in on weekends because she works double shifts then, but she always finds only a single piece moved, patiently waiting her turn, when she comes in on Monday after she finishes her morning classes at the community college. All she’s been able to figure out is that it must be a morning customer, since regardless of whether Skye arrives at 10 or 2, the other person has already taken their turn. But Skye hasn’t made it in for a morning in the café in forever, since if she doesn’t have a class to attend or a shift to work, she’s sleeping in. And it’s going to take more than a chess game to get her up before 10 on days like that.

Skye sips her coffee as she glances over at the undisturbed game for the twelfth time today, seeing the pieces exactly as they were when she had paid for her drink an hour ago. She’s under no delusions that she’s a good chess player, but an embarrassing amount of time today has been spent with her earbuds in watching chess strategy videos on Youtube instead of working on her essay for her composition class. It’s stupid, she knows, but Skye can admit that she has a competitive streak that doesn’t get much action these days, since she’s been living alone out of her car for almost five months at this point. If she’s going to play this game, she’s resolved that she’s going to win.

Skye has considered moving two pieces in one day to screw with the other player, but she’s not sure if that will result in that person having a laugh or abandoning the game. She hardly cares at this point whether it’s an old man or a twelve-year-old kid, and she’s tried to talk herself out of digging too hard to find the identity of her opponent. Someone is literally playing with her, and Skye can barely feel ashamed by how much she’s loving this game—she almost doesn’t want it to end.

But she _does_ want to win.

 “Dropped a blueberry scone this morning,” Tanya announces as she walks up to Skye’s nest on the sofa, producing the pastry wrapped in a napkin from the pocket of her apron. “I don’t know how I keep doing that.”

“Thanks,” Skye whispers with a smile, taking the pastry and quickly stuffing it in her bag, before Susan can see. “How are you today?”

“Not a bad morning,” Tanya says, refilling Skye’s coffee cup with the carafe from the counter. “How was your shift?”

“Same as always—people who want their food greasy and coffee hot,” Skye answers with a shrug. “But can’t complain since I get a free plate of it at the end of every shift.” As she pauses the video, an idea strikes her. “Hey Tanya, do you happen to know which morning customer keeps moving the pieces on the chessboard?”

“What, like, knocking them over?” Tanya says, glancing back at the game by the register.

“No,” Skye says quickly. “Like, moving one piece a day.”

Tanya shrugs. “We’re usually too busy in the morning for me to notice much of anything. But I’ll keep an eye out if I can.”

Two more weeks pass, and the piles of pieces they’ve captured from each other grow on either side of the board. Skye would like to think she’s winning, but considering this is more or less her first game ever, she guesses she’s in no place to judge.

One day, however, she comes in to find the board set up for a fresh game, and she actually stops in her tracks on her path to the counter, staring dumbly at the board.

“Some kid knocked the pieces over last night,” Carmela says from behind the counter, obviously understanding Skye’s reaction. “Sorry, I know you told me that you were in the middle of a game with someone.”

Rousing herself, Skye shakes her head and approaches the register. “It doesn’t matter,” she says, shaking her head and paying for her coffee cup. “It’s just a game.”

Carmela hands her a mug with a sympathetic look, and Skye lingers at the board as she passes. The pieces are reset for a new game, but she also sees a small scrap of paper sticking out from beneath one of the white pawns.

Brow crinkling, she pulls it out.

 _Guess we got interrupted,_ the note reads. _Play again? You can go first this time._

Skye grins to herself and pokes a white pawn out in an opening move. Before she leaves, she tears a scrap of paper from her notebook and scribbles a message on it.

_Thanks. I’ll try to beat you faster this time._

_Good luck with that,_ a note stuck under her queen the next day reads.

The notes are not as consistent as the game itself, but they become a fun addition to the competition. Skye tapes her opponent’s notes inside the back cover of her notebook as the days roll on and the pieces start to pile up on the sides of the board again. She studies the handwriting every now and then, gradually becoming more and more sure that she’s playing against a woman, one obviously old enough to have neat, regular handwriting and not a scrawl like her own. She wonders what her notes make the other opponent think of her.

_Some kid with too much time on her hands who can’t write in neat print to save her life, probably._

One day, Skye arrives at the café and sees the game set up as usual, the black rook moved into a new place, and she pulls a note out from beneath her king.

 _Checkmate,_ it reads. _Play again?_

It takes all her resolve to do it, but Skye leaves the board and doesn't re-set the pieces, tucking a note under the other player’s king before she leaves.

_Only if we play in person._

The next day the board is still frozen in the final play of their last game, but there’s a new note under her king.

_Are you asking me out?_

Something flutters in Skye’s stomach. Unsure of what to say, she takes her seat and starts her homework, realizing too late that she’s forgotten that it’s Brian’s day to work.

“What, no chess game today?” he says as he passes her sofa, clearing dirty dishes off the tables around her.

Rolling her eyes at him comes out of habit, but Skye can’t help but ask.

“Do you happen to know who I’m playing against in the mornings?” she asks, barely glancing his direction.

She practically tackles him, however, when he says, “Yeah, of course. It’s Melinda.”

Skye is directly behind him in an instant.

“Brian, you beautiful bearded bastard, tell me everything!” she demands, grabbing him by the front of his apron. “Melinda _who_?"

“Well, someone’s thirsty,” Brian remarks, bracing the dish bucket against his hip with one hand and prying her hands off his clothes with the other. “She’s the Asian lady who’s always here at the crack of dawn looking flawless and somehow never ordering coffee. I swear, that woman’s gotta be a vampire or something.”

“Oh my god, you are giving me a gift. What time does she come in?” Skye demands, following him back to the counter.

The next morning, Skye has her laptop set up in her corner of the sofa within minutes of the doors being unlocked. She has class in two hours, but she doesn’t care. Today there should be just enough time.

The morning rush begins with a trickle that gradually picks up as the clock ticks past six thirty, and even though Skye keeps her laptop open and her reading assignment pulled up, she doesn’t read a word of it, her eyes remaining fixed on the door.

When Melinda does finally walk in, Skye knows it’s her without needing Brian’s pointed nod to confirm it. The woman is gorgeous, all right—long black hair hanging in loose waves past the shoulders of the black blazer she’s wearing over a matte violet blouse, minimal makeup and jewelry, and tall heels emerging from the cuffs of her black dress pants. And she does indeed look put-together, like this is her favorite hour of the day and not the hour that everyone is usually re-evaluating life decisions.

Skye is barely breathing as Melinda approaches the counter, orders something, and pays. Skye ignores Brian’s eyebrow-wagging as Melinda drifts towards the chess board, looks down at the pieces now moved back into a starting position, and pulls out the note Skye left her the day before under a pawn. The woman’s head bows as she reads it quickly, then, without hesitation, she turns over her shoulder and looks directly at Skye.

Her heart stutters in her chest—from excitement or surprise, she isn’t sure—but Skye can’t help but grin, unable to look away as the woman lifts one hand in silent greeting and smiles briefly at her. The barista hands her a to-go cup, and the woman turns Skye’s direction again, pulling out a chair at the table with the chess game and gracefully sitting down. Melinda takes a sip of her drink, reaches out and moves a white piece.

She looks over at Skye, quirking a brow expectantly.

_Your move._


End file.
